As California voters were rejecting all but one of a package of budget measures Tuesday night, Marin public officials and political leaders reflected on why the measures lost so handily and where the state goes from here.

The Marin vote looked like this: Prop. 1A lost by 8 percent, Prop. 1B by 5 percent, Prop. 1C by 20 percent, Prop. 1D by 19 percent and Prop. 1E by 20 percent. Prop. 1F, which prohibits raises for government officials during deficit years, won by 61 percent.

Several Marin residents who cast their votes at a polling place in Terra Linda yesterday reflected the popular sentiment.

“I voted no on all of them,” said Jeremy Nelson. “I don’t think propositions are a really good way to handle budget crises. I think that the people in Sacramento need to do a better job sorting it out.”

“There should not have been a special election because that itself cost a lot of money, which they don’t have,” said Margaret Gonzalez.

“I think that the Legislature is basically forcing the voters to do their work for them, and I think we’re going to be sending them a message,” said Ed Duffy.

Mary Jane Burke, superintendent of Marin County schools, echoed that point of view.

Burke added, “I guess this is just saying that people are not going to be moved by the threat approach,” referring to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s projected budget cuts if the package failed.

Burke expects deep cuts to education due to the state’s now $21 billion budget deficit going into next year.

“We’re going to see fewer school days. We’re going to see higher class sizes. We’re going to see the programs that we’ve all worked towards – arts, sports, nutrition, counselors, libraries, technology – taken apart, decimated,” Burke said.

But Marin’s representatives in the Legislature took exception to the notion that they are to blame for the state’s fiscal woes.

“It was the best we could do with this completely unworkable two-thirds vote system,” said Assemblyman Jared Huffman, D-San Rafael.

State Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, said, “We in fact did do our job and it needed ratification by the voters.”

In retrospect, Leno said, “The governor should have been the last person campaigning for these measures. He was not the appropriate messenger, because he is very unpopular right now.

“But I have to say,” Leno said, ” everything he’s said in the past week is accurate and true. He was not selling fear; he was selling fiscal reality.”

Schwarzenegger said on Thursday that if the measures failed that he would be forced to borrow $2 billion from local governments.

“It looks like it will cost us $8 million,” said Supervisor Charles McGlashan, referring to the amount that will come from the county of Marin. “It’s a grim situation, but not a surprise.”

San Rafael Mayor Al Boro said his city will probably be forced to cut another $2 million from next year’s budget, which has already been cut $5 million from the current year’s total.

“We haven’t even begun to hypothesize how we’re going to do that,” Boro said. He said the city will have to consider layoffs.

Leno said Democrats can raise $6 billion by raising fees that only require a simple majority vote, if Gov. Schwarzenegger approves the increases, and can raise another $6 billion by borrowing from local governments, education and transportation accounts.

“But we still have $9 billion to go and that is where there is no more triaging but just raw cuts,” Leno said. “Vital, cherished, important governmental programs will now be horribly cut back. There are no options. There were options yesterday. The voters rejected them.”

Huffman said borrowing from local governments will have to be considered along with all other options.

“There really is no choice but to have them on the table,” Huffman said.

Michael Hartnett, a member of the Marin Republican Party’s central committee and board member of Marin United Taxpayers Association, said, “I hope the Legislature gets the message and is serious about cutting waste. There has got to be waste in this government if we can’t take care our poor and our schools, and yet we’re one of the highest-taxed states in the country.”

For starters, Hartnett suggested that the state stop sending minor drug offenders to jail and crack down on illegal immigration, “because the employers are getting all the benefits out of cheap labor and the taxpayers are picking up the bill for immigration.”

Boro lamented the inability of state legislators to work together.

“I think ideology is getting in the way of doing what is right for the people of the state,” Boro said, “and I think it is wrong. You’ve got two opposing sides with two opposing extreme views. Someone has got to get them to the middle, and I don’t know how that is going to happen.”